Differences in automatic emotion regulation after social exclusion in individuals with different attachment types

Longing for good social relations is an eternal pursuit of individuals, but the occurrence of social exclusion destroys this pursuit. Research has shown that sometimes there is no difference between the emotional state of individuals after exclusion and the acceptance, but they engage in automatic emotional regulation. We are interested in whether all individuals experiencing exclusion have the same level of automatic emotion regulation. Scholars point out that the attachment system can be regarded as an emotional regulation device, in social interaction, when individuals feel threat and pressure, they would automatically stimulate the attachment system, so that individuals with different attachment types could express different emotion regulation patterns, but few studies have examined the relationship between social rejection and attachment. Therefore, this study examined the differences in automatic emotion regulation after social exclusion in individuals with different attachment types. Individuals' attachment types were classified by questionnaire measures, the lonely end-of-life paradigm was used for the manipulation of social exclusion, and the free recall task and the visual search task were used to measure individuals' levels of automatic emotion regulation, respectively. This study indicated that individuals in the exclusion group produced significant automatic emotion regulation compared to the acceptance group, and that secure attachment individuals had more significant automatic emotion regulation than insecure attachment individuals in the exclusion group. The information gained by the current study could improve the understanding of the underlying mechanisms of personality traits and emotion regulation, and could provide methods for individuals to deal with negative events such as social exclusion. •Severe experience of exclusion can increase the thresholds of social pain perception.•Social exclusion can activate automatic reverse regulation mechanisms of emotion.•Attachment type can affect the level of automatic emotion regulation.•Secure attachment individuals have higher ability of automatic emotion regulation.•The modified lonely end-of-life paradigm using the E-prime procedure can improves the authenticity of exclusion experience.